


Fathers We Never Knew

by ImpishTubist



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Implied homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-29
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-17 06:36:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishTubist/pseuds/ImpishTubist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They will be better men than their fathers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fathers We Never Knew

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I own nothing.
> 
>  **Notes:** We had our first snowfall of the season here this week; Lord only knows why that inspired _this_. Victor Trevor is a character taken from ACD canon. This particular version of him can stand alone, though you are welcome to believe that this occurs before the events of [“Gravity.”](http://archiveofourown.org/works/490349) Title comes from _Into the Woods._

In his own defense, Sherlock Holmes doesn’t _actually_ go out seeking fights.

He doesn’t look for them to come to him, either. In fact, given the choice, he’d rather avoid them altogether, as it never turns out well for the other person and he has better things to be doing with his time. Despite all of this, however, he has three times already this year had to throw someone--quite literally--out of Baker Street. John hasn’t been home for any of the incidents, thank God, or Sherlock would never hear the end of it. 

The last one had been a month back, and in the wake of his unfortunate opponent’s hasty escape through the kitchen window, a latch had been jostled out of place. If anything more than a stiff breeze comes by their flat, the window rattles. John, who sleeps upstairs, has yet to complain about it, and Sherlock has found that the rhythm of the tapping directly corresponds to the type of weather they’re experiencing. An even beat every two seconds is indicative of a steady breeze; beats in groups of three _(Waltz No. 1 in E-flat, Grande Valse Brillante)_ is the head of a fast-moving front, the warning bell before a storm. 

The five o’clock _tap-tap-tap-rat-tap_ is a steady rain with the occasional gust of wind. It is just a shade uneven, and that is what pulls Sherlock from sleep on this particular morning--and also what keeps him from returning to unconsciousness. Irritated, he slides from his bed and pads into the kitchen, feet stinging against the cool floor. A quarter of an hour’s fruitless struggle with the window yields no results, and he soon gives up both on that and the idea of future sleep. 

John is away this weekend at his sister’s; Lestrade is attempting yet another useless reconciliation with the soon-to-be ex-wife. Even Mrs Hudson has abandoned him, opting for a weekend in the country with a man Sherlock is sure is of dubious reputation, even though he has yet to find proof to back up this assumption. 

Sherlock draws the thin dressing gown tighter around his shoulders as the swift morning breeze carries into the flat the heavy, sharp scent of rain. He goes back into his room and fetches his mobile, and spends a moment with his thumb poised hesitantly over the  1  as he contemplates dialing the number. It’s not often he feels so acutely his isolation, but on rare moments such as these, when everyone else has someone they go to and he _cannot_ because of bloody _Mycroft_... 

By mid-morning, the rain has solidified, and when Sherlock looks out of the windows in the main room he realises that he can distinguish the drops from one another, as opposed to just seeing a falling, transparent sheet of grey. 

_Snow_.

The flakes are quick and wet, and when they hit the pavement they instantly turn to water once again. It’s the first snow of the season, which means that it can’t last. 

_It never does,_ Victor had said once. _The world's not quite ready for it yet._

_Sentiment_ , Sherlock had scoffed at the time, but what he wouldn’t give now for his lover to be home again, if only for a moment, sentiment and all.

They had traded a tentative kiss during a first snow years ago, Victor’s sure hands on Sherlock’s hips and his stubble grazing Sherlock’s upper lip. It had been momentous for no reason other than that it had been their first, for they had most certainly had better ones in the years since. There is no reason, in fact, for Sherlock to remember it at all. 

He does anyway. 

Victor fell out badly with his father not long after that wintry kiss, and to this day still has told Sherlock nothing about what transpired between them during that horrendous holiday. Sherlock can guess well enough what happened--that the elder Trevor, for all his affection towards his only child, could not see past who he chose to take to bed, and wrote Victor out of his life. 

At nineteen, Sherlock had had nothing to offer Victor in the way of comfort, having never known his own father and unable to see why familial relations should mean more than those made by choice. But the difference between nineteen and twenty-nine is that Sherlock now has John, and a better grasp on situations he himself has never experienced.

Victor’s father’s love came with conditions.

Victor’s never did.

And so Sherlock finally pulls out his phone, and presses 1 for the man who is his entire life. 

The line crackles and spits as it reaches out across the thousands of miles that separate them, and it is an age before Victor answers. 

“Your father was an idiot,” Sherlock says by way of greeting.

“Or _hello_ , as most people would say,” Victor says dryly. 

“I’m not most people.”

“No, you certainly aren’t.” Victor gives a fond laugh. “God, it’s good to hear your voice. To what do I owe the pleasure, Sherlock?”

“It’s snowing here,” Sherlock says, as though it should be a satisfactory explanation. And, because this is Victor, it is. 

“Is it?” 

“Yes,” Sherlock replies absently, eyes tracking the path of one particular flake until it becomes indistinguishable from the rest as they float towards the ground. 

“Oh, Will,” Victor sighs, sorrow in his voice. “I miss you, too.”

The endearment comes from Sherlock’s middle name--his father’s given one--and from a night they had spent together on Victor’s father’s estate, back when Victor’s world had been right and good. It had been uttered in a moment of bliss, and Victor had never quite managed to shake the habit--it was the only thing, in fact, that he held onto after the fight with his father. There is a Before and an After for Victor, and Sherlock is the only thing that exists in both places. 

“He was an idiot,” Sherlock repeats. 

“He’s dead now, Sher,” Victor says gently, “so what does it matter?”

“It will always matter,” Sherlock replies, and this time he speaks from experience. The only memory he has of his own father is the scratch of a beard against his tiny cheek as William Holmes bends to kiss him. He has countless more of his mother, his brother, his flatmate... and yet that one of his father has persisted throughout the years, even though twenty-six of them have passed since the day of his unexpected death.

His father will be with him always, shaping him, whether Sherlock wants him to or not. 

_I won't leave_ , he had promised Victor a decade ago, because for half his life, he had known his father simply as the man who made his mother cry. 

To which Victor had replied, _I know you won't._

“Tell me about the job,” Sherlock says at last when Victor says nothing in reply, desperate for the familiar sound of the deep, sandpaper voice. If he shuts his eyes when Victor is speaking, he can even pretend that they are in the same room.

“You know I can’t,” Victor says regretfully, and this is true. He is in Pakistan at the moment, working on God-knows-what for Mycroft, and because it _is_ Mycroft behind it all, Sherlock can’t deduce anything about the job from what little contact he has with Victor. “And pleased as I am to hear from you, I’ve been gone for almost a year now. Never before today have you called me without purpose. So what’s wrong, Will?”

Sherlock shakes his head, his hand tightening on the mobile.

“Shall I give you the list chronologically, or alphabetically?” He sighs through his nose. “It’s snowing. You aren’t here. John is with his sister. You aren’t here. Lestrade is with his wife, there hasn’t been a decent case in _weeks_ , and you aren’t here.” Sherlock worries a thread on the sleeve of his dressing gown and repeats, softer, “You aren’t here.”

Victor sighs over the line. 

“I can’t do much about most of those things, I’m afraid. Much as I like to pretend otherwise. But perhaps... perhaps there _is_ something I can do about one of them.”

“Do you control the weather now?” Sherlock snorts. Victor laughs. 

“No. It’s still snowing. But...”

The door to the flat creaks in protest as it is opened, and Sherlock whirls on the spot. Victor is standing on the threshold, an overnight bag slung over his shoulder and flakes of snow clinging to the ends of his dark hair. He’s a little more lined, a little more grey, a little more worn at the edges, and the smudges of purple under his eyes tell Sherlock that he has not slept properly in days. But the smile he offers is as kind as Sherlock remembers, and his chocolate eyes brim with barely-concealed joy.

“But,” Victor says again, pocketing his mobile and grinning at Sherlock’s stupefaction, “I _am_ here.”

 

_I will be better than him_ , Victor had promised all those winters ago.

To which Sherlock had replied, _You already are._


End file.
